Outside the net billing tariff, inside a local programme
Since April 15, 2023, customers applying for interconnection in the territories of Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric have taken service on the net billing tariff, pursuant to CPUC decision D.22-12-056.
Riverside Public Utilities is a municipal utility. It is not subject to the Commission's net metering decisions and runs its own self-generation programme for customers who generate their own electricity.
So the research task is different. Rather than reading about a statewide tariff, you need Riverside's own published terms, and the utility maintains solar information pages for exactly that purpose. Start there rather than with a general California solar guide.
It is also a fast test of an installer. Someone who works Riverside will name the city programme without prompting. Someone who opens by explaining NEM 3.0 is describing rules that do not apply to your address.
The questions that decide your return here
Ask how exported electricity is credited under the city programme, and specifically whether the credit varies with the time of day the export happens. That answer determines whether the timing of your production matters, and therefore whether storage is a financial decision or only a resilience one.
Ask what rate plan a solar customer is placed on, and how it differs from the plan you are on now. Moving onto a different rate structure changes what you pay for the electricity you still buy, and that can matter as much as what you are credited for exports.
Ask what limit applies to system size and how it is calculated, since programmes of this kind commonly size a system against your own historic consumption rather than against your roof. Get that number before a designer starts drawing.
Ask whether the terms you join on are fixed for a period or subject to change. A long savings projection rests on an assumption about the years ahead, and you are entitled to see that assumption stated rather than buried in a total.
Inland heat, and whether a battery earns its place
Riverside summers put a heavy afternoon and evening cooling load on a household. That is generally favourable for solar because production and demand overlap through much of the day, though the peak of household demand usually arrives as production is fading.
Ask your installer to model the share of production your household consumes as it is generated and to value the remainder at the actual export terms of the city programme. A projection treating all production as equally valuable is assuming a one-for-one arrangement you may not have.
Panel efficiency also falls as cell temperature rises, so the hottest afternoons are not the highest-producing ones. Ask what temperature assumptions sit behind your production estimate and whether it was modelled for your roof rather than a regional average.
A grid-tied array without storage shuts down during an outage as a safety requirement. If keeping cooling running matters to you, storage must be designed in, and SGIP offers $850 per kilowatt hour under Equity or $1,000 per kilowatt-hour under Equity Resiliency for qualifying customers.
What changed federally, and the battery incentive that remains
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. A cash or loan purchase made now receives no federal credit, and a quote that still applies it is overstating your return substantially. Check any projection line by line rather than trusting a summary figure.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent and is available to third-party owners of residential systems under leases and power purchase agreements. The credit still exists, it simply no longer flows to a homeowner who buys the system. Expect lease providers to lead with that, and ask what they claim and what of that value actually reaches you in the rate offered, then confirm with a tax advisor.
California's Self-Generation Incentive Program continues to provide incentives for battery storage installed on the customer's side of the meter, including systems that can function during a power outage. Its Equity and Equity Resiliency categories are aimed at lower-income, medically vulnerable and at-risk for fire communities.
Depending on the category a customer qualifies for, the incentive is $850 per kilowatt hour under Equity or $1,000 per kilowatt-hour under Equity Resiliency. Applicants have one year after reserving funds to meet programme requirements, which include enrollment in a qualified Demand Response program, and further criteria are in the SGIP Handbook. Ask whether you might qualify and confirm with the programme rather than treating a sales answer as final.